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Please come see me at That’s What Sadie Said!

We decided today that our marriage is over. We will begin divorce proceedings after the holidays.

That is such an odd thing to type in the text space of this blog. It feels terribly surreal, as if someone else is controlling my fingers as I type. I didn’t even know what a blog was just four years ago, and now here I sit with over over 900 posts and close to 8,000 comments in my Dashboard.

Who’d have ever known?

Certainly not me. But what do I know, I didn’t think I’d ever get divorced. I have always assumed that we would be married until one of us died.

But that is not the case, and lest you think our marriage’s demise is as a result of our openness or my writing about it here or in my book … it is not. There are reasons far and wide for this transition, none of which I am at liberty to share nor inclined to even if I were.

And so I will say goodbye. This blog has officially become irrelevant. Incongruous. Discordant.

However, please know that it is likely you haven’t seen or heard the last of me. I am a writer, after all. I imagine I will pop up here and there around the web, and who knows? Maybe one of these days I’ll co-opt another slice of cyberspace about something else that interests me.

Is there anything besides sex and relationships that interest me? Hmmmm… I’d have to mull that one over a bit.

I will be leaving the blog up, for now anyway, because I think it serves as a resource for some people looking for information about open relationships. And remember, just because this particular open relationship didn’t work doesn’t mean that they can’t work. It only means that this one didn’t.

Sometimes shit just doesn’t work.

So, until then, please feel free to track me down on Facebook, on Twitter, hanging ’round my BedPost Confessions shows, over on my open relationship consulting site, or simply send me an email. I’d love to hear from you, to keep in touch with those who’ve been stopping by regularly, and to continue making new friends.

Because that is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Adieu!

Love,
Sadie

How do you do maintain your sobriety through the tough parts? She asked me pointedly, with a drunken slur that cut quick and dirty; sharp, rusty razors rife with reminders of what I once succumbed to in similarly desperate moments.

I’m not totally sure, I answered. However, I believe I’ve transposed my desire to drink in what was a futile effort at maintaining a semblance of control into a fervid need to NOT drink, in an effort to preserve that very same control.

I’m not sure that’s the whole truth but it’s certainly part of it. I prefer to have control over myself, over my behavior, and over what is ultimately my life. When I discovered that drinking was simply a reflection of the contrary, it became clear to me that it had no place in the clutter.

But still, I struggle. Day by day sometimes. And at others the time stretches between the struggles are longer, depending on what is going on in my life.

These days it’s minute by minute.

I sat and listened to her after I’d answered the question, listened to the sadness and the questioning punctuated by genuinely heartfelt sentiments, all highlighted by the haze of booze. And I understood.

Being in our bodies can be challening, can’t it? Existing inside ourselves, sensing every single drop of blood as it runs screaming through our veins, threatening, it can seem, to stop abruptly before it decides willfully to carry on. I feel as if I am floating. Blood is my mode of transport, frothy bubbles that wash me to my next destination, toward all the places I am supposed to be present for, but can’t help but approach through myopic lenses – waking up in the morning, showering, making breakfast for my daughter, taking her to school, doing work, contending with school assignments I can’t concentrate on and and a cat who has decided that a litter box is superfluous.

But such is life inside our bodies.

I want to control my body when in fact what I need to do is listen to it. Listen to the wave of sensation it sends through the stream, listen when it tells me that drinking is a bad idea even though goddam it sure would take the fucking edge off, and most importantly, listen when it says, You’re okay.

Which is exactly what happened this afternoon. The conversation I participated in, with this sweet woman I’ve known since my birth, and for whom drinking has also been a struggle, reminds me that, really? I am okay. We are all okay, after all.

We just don’t always know it, do we?

Confessions are fascinating offerings, aren’t they? We take our innermost thoughts and perhaps secrets, very slices of our souls, and give them away for others to take, judge, identify with, relate to, misconstrue, understand, be flatly against or wholly believe in –or somewhere in between- and be entertained, influenced and even, if we are lucky, educated by.

I have told many a confession here and in other places ‘round the web and it has certainly been interesting seeing my confessions evolve – through strings of stories, tales of encounters and situations, around thoughts that surround them, interweaved with lessons I’ve learned… and even a few that were probably missed. I’ve enjoyed every bit of sharing my thoughts and experiences here, even when I didn’t love the circumstances or situations that lead to my expressions of them.

And isn’t that what confessing is all about after all? Putting out there for at least one other person to hear so that we can release a piece of ourselves – leveling, unifying, communicating, creating a connection of some sort so that we don’t feel as if we are alone in it – whatever it may be. Chances are if we have had a thought or experience, someone else has had a similar one.

I confess that I have loved discovering that I’m not alone out there in the infinitely vast landscape that is life. It’s made me feel secure, like a pillow across my lap while I watch TV. Confident like a brand-new pair of well-fitting jeans. Contented as a young child in her mother’s lap.

I also confess that I am in the midst of what feels like, thus far, the most arduous and overwhelming thing I have ever experienced.

He moved out this weekend, my husband of 15 years. Our daughter helped him pack up some of his belongings and install his provisions into his new apartment. They shopped for new home items together, she excitedly helped him set up his bed and whateverelse, and together they carved out a special space for her. She will rotate between us weekly and throughout this entire process she has done very, very well.

I however, have been confronted by the abject aloneness of finalizing a departure from someone who has functioned as so much a part of me for so very long. Coming home yesterday to a half empty closet and a reminder of what was sent me absolutely reeling with dread and overwhelm… and sadness.

But I will work through these bits of challenge. It’s what we do, isn’t it? We take what comes our way in the manner we know how. I can complain and cry or I can suck it up and move forward. For the time being, I suppose I will do some of both. In the interest of balance and all that. I will just have to try to remember during the particularly difficult parts that I’ve designed it this way. I asked for what I wanted, what I needed – space for each of us to figure some things out – and I got exactly that.

So, really, I can’t complain. Besides, I still have hope that this thing will work out between us.

And the wonderful thing about hope is that it can spur us toward action – something that relationships must fully and steadily encompass in order for them to be sustainable, but which is often tragically forgotten.

So, here’s to hope, to more confessions… and to whatever else will be.

Last night’s casual grab of the back of my neck by a good friend sent surprise shiver whispers inside the remote and quiet depths of me, goose bumps skin-surfing my entire body, shoulders scrunching toward my ears in delight.

Oh, and desire.

For more. Of that.

For the remainder of the evening, I stood there wondering – Is it too much to ask for someone to do exactly that? Just hold my hair, grasp it tightly in your thick, rough hewn fingers right there at its root where the hairline meets the nape of my neck and pull it, gently, and hold, hold, hold please, for just a little a while, then pull again, upwards this time and more forcefully until my heels and then toes slowly and desperately begin to peel off the floor, my soles stuffed full of intention and fixation, teeming with urgency and craving and lust and… hope? Can I hope that someday soon this particular little base, dirty desire will be fulfilled without me having to ask, to hope… to yearn? Is this yearning, which threatens wickedly to become an absolute fucking necessity, this yearning to be suspended by my hair in someone’s strong and impassioned fingers, is this more a mark of loneliness or of resolve? Resolve to find someone that can meet such a very simple need.

Like the shiver that begins its journey on the outer edge of my thigh and then creeps serenely down the length of my leg, I am quite obviously in a state of flux. And I believe, from inside the quiet depths of me, that the possibility of at least temporary grounding lives inside an integral and sweet spot inside my feet-soles.

And with their rise, so too will I.

Utter calmness descended upon me as we drove away from Austin, despite the fact that I knew we would be on the road for many, many hours.

It didn’t matter.

Stepping away from my life had become an absolute imperative, so my trip to Burning Man couldn’t have been better timed. Leaving my husband and child behind gave me no pause whatsoever. I needed this trip. Needed it like dust needs a surface on which to cling.

We had several breakdowns along the way, mechanical difficulties that I endured and my two male cohorts labored through (I held the flashlight and sweet-talked gas station attendants for supplies while they did the actual dirty work). Yet these setbacks did not impact my serenity in the slightest. I was committed to practicing presence at every moment. And did I ever succeed.

So, driving into the limits of Black Rock City, a place where possibility exists far beyond the realm of the most active imaginations (and exactly fifty-three hours after we had embarked upon our journey) I was mellow. As mellow as I had been in quite some time. Mellow as yellow. As laid-back as a Golden Gate Park hippie in the California sunshine.

Mellow.

What could I possibly say about Burning Man that doesn’t sound cliché and trite? Words don’t capture its essence, nor do photographs give credence to the magic that occurs at every turn of a bicycle’s wheel, a hipster’s head, a dime in the sand.

See? Trite. Cliché. I can’t even give the experience adequate description.

But because my experience there in the black-hot Black Rock desert was one of acceptance, of love, and of learning – really learning to open myself up to creating connections with people, connections that might last a forever lifetime or be the fleeting moments they were designed to be– because this was my experience, and because I had so many fantastic, flashing interludes laced with lessons about me and who I am in this world, and because despite the heat and the dust and the gazillions of dirty, sexy people I managed to maintain my mellow for a solid two weeks, because of these things… I can be okay with the fact that I can’t properly communicate how motherfucking awesome it was.

Perhaps a picture of me in the midst of my mellow will have to suffice. And perhaps mellow is something I should learn to cultivate here at home too.

Another lesson to learn… and counting.

I stood peering at myself in the mirror, wondering if I looked the same as I did the last time he saw me, three years ago.

Nah, I thought, I actually look better!

When I’d lived there in California I had been the quintessential party girl. He knew me as that free-spirited, unrestrained, kindafuckedup woman. Since then, getting sober has pulled me together – it helped me drop a considerable amount of weight, compelled me to stop smoking and allowed me the energy to get to the gym regularly. I am three years older, yes, but I definitely look better now than I did back then.

Plus, I’ve learned who I am which means that I am comfortable in my body. Grounded, rooted even, inside of it.

Well … usually, anyway.

He had seen me the day before. We’d had lunch and as he sat across the wide, black-laquered table from me, it was clear that he was appreciative of my appearance. But he hadn’t seen me unclothed, exposed, vulnerable, wanting. He had yet to unwrap the package of me, and relish gifts of comfort, diversion, satisfaction. And while we certainly had a past, what had once been between us had fallen, unnoticed, by the wayside; littered remnants of sweet but distant memories. The possibility that lie between us existed inside a quiet hotel room across town.

My phone lit up – Here, his text read.

I collected my purse and walked out the door towards his car. We made small talk on the way to the Hilton, about what I don’t remember, it is a bit of a blur. I do remember that the receptionist at the hotel didn’t blink when I asked for a day use room, maybe because I have reached a point in my life where the possibility that a hotel clerk might think I’m a slut has become wholly inconsequential to me, and so my confidence in asking for a room to fuck in for the day has reached its utmost peak.

Plus I was beyond horny.

Beyond.

We took our time getting to the room. Slowly we walked from the elevator down the hallway, he holding my hand behind his back in a gesture of temporary ownership. It is his style to go slow in the beginning, let the moments build upon each other in fevered anticipation of what might be next. It is also his style to lay temporary claim to me during the time that we are together, a practice to which I completely conform. Happily even. And it didn’t take long to recognize that we had come together completely empty-handed – no vibrators, no dildos, no booze, no weed, no ties, no blindfold, no lube. Condoms were our only accoutrement, and they, like sweet memories, went unnoticed.

Almost.

Inside that hotel room, the one across town, occurred a primal blur of bodies, steeped in longing so deep that it bordered upon compulsion.

You are absolutely perfect. With you I will fill my cup, he whisper-spit at me in one sweet breath, laden with greed, tinged white-hot with need. He took me then, made me his – in one motion flipped me violently onto my back and threw my legs with a grasp so tight my eyes stung, up towards the flat-white ceiling; thick, drenched tongue found my cunt after it ran primitively down the entire side of my body. My sigh, the sigh that wrote more than words could ever render, was audible. Palpable even.

I had returned.

The blur continued through to the afternoon. Cups were filled. Giving was taken, received, spit out like watermelon seeds seeking solace in the soil. And taking what was given? That was a given.

It was, after all was said and done, the most perfect afternoon – a splendid combination of worship and abuse.

What more could one ask for after a three year absence?

The fact is that I never did.

But I got exactly what I wanted anyway.

Scott and I had just had a really big argument. Or perhaps I should say it was I that was arguing.

I had become emotionally triggered and I unfortunately allowed myself to spin completely out of control, despite the number of times I’d said to several different friends on recent occasions, regarding their own issues with spousal squabbles, Nothing will get accomplished when you’re in a heightened emotional state, so when you feel yourself becoming reactive, walk away from the conversation and revisit it 20 minutes later after you’ve calmed down.

It seems I don’t even know how to take my own fucking advice.

I had been standing on Battery Street in the middle San Francisco’s financial district, yelling into my phone at him, railing about how he wasn’t doing it right – whatever “it” was I am sure I could recall if I wanted but the truth is I’d rather forget. I have occasionally found myself in this over-reactive state. I am human, after all, and this whole separation thing has been something of a challenge. But I was in very rare form this particular afternoon, and I am sure there were some businessmen and women heading back to offices from lunch breaks who received unpleasant earfuls of my vitriol. I wasn’t holding back – my tongue sharp razors of blame and punishment.

It was a couple of days later that I was able to get clear as a bell that my expectations of him are beliefs I am not free to have, that his actions are totally out of my control, and that the foundation of my happiness hinges upon no one else but me. But I didn’t know it then. Well, on some level I understood those concepts…. but I wasn’t practicing them. I was, instead, blaming. Shaming. Beating him up while I stood indignantly on the sidewalk as workaday passers-by gave wide berth to my bitterness.

It was not my finest hour. But it was, thankfully, short-lived.

It is amazing how quickly a mood can shift, how focus can be derailed, how one’s psychological atmosphere can morph from contempt into contentedness.

I had just hung up the phone and was looking up towards the tops of buildings searching for their street numbers. I was looking for the parking garage where I had deposited my car, pre-lunch, just a few hours before. I had suddenly become disoriented (likely due to all the adrenaline I’d ushered forth as a result of my outrage) and couldn’t remember what block I had been on. It was exactly that moment, not three seconds after I’d put my phone back into my purse, when a cute guy walked up to me and said, You look like you’re lost, can I help you?

Yes, I replied, grateful for the offering. My car’s parked at a garage on Sansome, but I am not sure where that is exactly. Oh, he said, it’s just over there. My office is right above it. I thanked him with a big smile and began to walk up the block towards the garage.

Funny how focus can shift. How possibility opens up like quiet fields in front of us. How simple directions to a car can become a catalyst for temperament change.

Hey, he shouted towards me as I was leaving, you are really cute. I turned back towards him and if I blushed, I did not know. I only knew I liked how I felt inside of my skin right then. My response was in kind, Well so are you. I smiled.

It’s my birthday! he remarked, and whether or not this was the truth was at that moment irrelevant. The fact that he was standing there speaking to me, acknowledging me, and then asking for exactly what he wanted from me was as big a turn on to me as gay black gangster porn.

He was twenty five, and one of the things he had just decided he wanted for his birthday was to make out with me.

So I said, Okay.

And in the middle of San Francisco’s financial district, on a warm and sunny Friday afternoon, I kissed this cute young man because, well… he was cute, and also because he had asked for what he wanted. Put it right the fuck out there. And I did not even consider moving his hands as they wandered up and down and around my ass as we stood there, but instead grabbed the back of his hair with my hand and very gently tugged. And after a few of these lovely moments I pulled away. Although I really didn’t want to.

But I had to go, I told him.

He looked at me one last time and said, Wow, that was a really good kiss. Can we fuck?

Maybe, I considered. And I was reminded about how simply asking for what we want is the instrument for actually getting it. And with that I handed him my card and walked down the block, where I got in my car and drove away smiling, fascinated by how feelings are so very fluid – one constant rippling motion of delight and animosity. And everything that exists in between.

And how it’s time for me to dump my anger about my situation and move into acceptance. Of what is, of what will be. And how it is I that can make my life exactly what I want it to be.

All I’ve gotta do is ask for it, and make the shift.

All on my own.

These days I feel really similarly to how I felt when I quit drinking. My grief is so pronounced that its practically palpable, pulsating profoundly inside of me. Deep inside the core of my soul. It’s biting.

Cuttting.

Just like saying goodbye to booze, ending a relationship that has lasted as long as ours is akin to cutting out a piece of my flesh, or a limb, an organ even. Fuck that feels dramatic to say, but drama is what I feel like I am embroiled in right now.

And I fucking hate it.

I keep saying to those who inquire, It’s not the openness of our marriage that has caused the many problems between us, it’s many things, not the least of which is our dynamic itself and how it changed (and not for the better) once I quit drinking and got my shit together. But, really? The marriage’s openness is where so much of our dysfunction has played out -and if I am being completely honest, is one that feels like at this very moment a shit-filled sandbox of misery and betrayal- and so pretty consistently I have been slapped in the face over and over again with the dysfunctions of a relationship concept that I support, defend and champion for. But I am reminded through this whole thing that we are all human, we make mistakes and we fuck things up and hopefully we learn from those mistakes and fuckups. However, some of us don’t. And so, I am also reminded something else very very important, and while it is a lesson I believe I always understood as truth, I also believe I took its relevance and its gravity for granted – IT TAKES ALL INVOLVED FOR OPEN RELATIONSHIPS TO WORK PROPERLY.

And frankly, all involved in my open relationships did not always act out of integrity, honesty, openness and with responsibility to everyone… and I can include myself among that group. But the problem is that it’s continuing, and I am done participating in the bullshit. There is more, of course, so much more. But I know that I can expect nothing more than what I can expect from myself. And so I will continue to grieve the loss of my marriage and try not to view it from a distorted, angry lens. Although right now? That’s really fucking hard.

I leave very soon for another two weeks, this time to California – San Francisco and Yosemite. So I will not be blogging for a while. Which is probably a good thing because the last thing I want is for this to become a dumping ground for my bitterness and resentment. Hopefully when I return, I will have a clear-cut and more level-headed perspective on things.

See you all on the flip side.

Love,
Sadie